


Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

by shamrock



Category: Warrior Nun (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:41:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25421806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamrock/pseuds/shamrock
Summary: Ava revisits that conversation a lot in the days that follow. In the few quiet moments she can carve out for herself, in the half-murk between wakefulness and much-needed sleep her tired brain pulls out each sentence that they had exchanged and turns it over carefully like a precious stone, letting the light of her memory glance across its surface from different angles, hoping that might change what's reflected back at her. It doesn't.
Relationships: Sister Beatrice/Ava Silva
Comments: 222
Kudos: 745





	1. Ruth 1:16-18

> But Ruth replied: "Do not persuade me to leave you or go back and not follow you.  
>  For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live;  
>  your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.  
>  Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.  
>  May Yahweh punish me and do so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."
> 
> When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to persuade her.
> 
> Ruth 1:16-18

* * *

Ava revisits that conversation a lot in the days that follow. In the few quiet moments she can carve out for herself, in the half-murk between wakefulness and much-needed sleep her tired brain pulls out each sentence that they had exchanged and turns it over carefully like a precious stone, letting the light of her memory glance across its surface from different angles, hoping that might change what's reflected back at her. It doesn't.

She can recall the exact modulation of Beatrice's tone when her voice broke on "I felt finally myself". She could trace precisely the track of the first tear down the other woman's face as the evidence of her emotion that she tried so hard to blink and wish away fell in spite of herself. She could, quite happily, go back and kick her own ass for the cheery, light-hearted interjections she gave into Sister Melanie's narrative, before she realised that Beatrice wasn't simply translating an anecdote, but living it viscerally and tearing open a part of herself to let Ava see why and just how much it was affecting her. Hell, she could probably recite the entire conversation backwards by this point but for the life of her, she still cannot figure out why Beatrice got so angry at her, and what Ava could have done to change that.

Because, let's be clear, Ava really wants to change that.

Beatrice was the first of the Sisters who was, if not exactly welcoming, then at least not actively hostile towards her. She has been Ava's greatest support, a source of unexpected kindness and patience and, not incidentally, a total badass. The idea that Ava has offended or upset her in some way, especially in a moment of such vulnerable honesty, is almost more than she can bear - she may not adhere to all the tenets of the Catholic faith but guilt? She's got that one down.

It's not simple guilt though that eats away at her, that has her sleepless and fretful and irrationally angry with herself. There’s something underneath that feeling, something Ava can’t quite yet identify, that has her probing her memories of their conversation like a loose and particularly painful tooth. She can’t name it, but she can make out the shape of it, and it feels oddly like a missed opportunity.

Guilt is definitely the feeling though that surfaces in her now as she surveys her surroundings. The once-possessed bodies of the Vatican faithful are fanned out around the square, arcing from the centre point where she is down on one knee, the tip of the divinium sword resting an inch deep in the cobblestones before her. Camila is helping Mary to her feet as the older woman dusts herself off, eyes scanning the crowd for any sign of the long since departed Father Vincent and the newly released angel/demon/all-round pain in Ava's ass Adriel. Lilith is checking on the prone humans and her demeanour lessens some of Ava’s wild guilt- unconscious, not dead then.

Really, it could have gone either way. The power she felt surge throughout her in the midst of the battle was something entirely outside of her control. Ava wasn't thinking about expelling the demons from the possessed, or minimising casualties, or stopping Adriel even. If pressed she would have to say she honestly wasn't _thinking_ at all. One second she was using her sword to parry a precise jab from one of the Swiss Guard, and the next she heard a cry from her left where Beatrice had hit the wall hard, a crowd of snarling assailants crowding in on her as the wraith demons revelled in the violence and chaos their hosts were causing. 

The fear that swept through Ava as they closed on the other woman became something stronger, more powerful. She was used to feeling the halo feed its power into her but this time she felt the power come from somewhere deeper within, feeding into the halo, strong and stable and _more_. The energy that radiated from her as she drove the sword down threw the entire square off their feet, a shockwave of blue light rippling over the bodies of nuns, possessed, and terrified bystanders alike, and the wraith demons had evaporated in that light as their hosts lost consciousness.

Across the space and bodies between them Ava finally catches sight of Beatrice and something tight and sharp eases in her chest when she sees her push off the wall, grimacing as she clutches her shoulder. Beatrice looks up to meet her eyes and Ava can't breathe at what she finds there, the soft reverence overwhelming when coupled with the unspoken sentiment that doesn't need words to find its way directly into Ava's still-hammering heart.

_'I knew you could do it.'_

Beatrice’s faith is strong, Ava knows. She has seen it, steadfast and unwavering. The thought that she is now the recipient of at least some of that faith makes her feel stronger than the Halo, the sword, all the hosts of Heaven at her shoulder ever could.

Something uncomfortable and fundamental starts to shift as Ava begins, slowly, to form a name for the feeling that’s been brewing inside her. She’s grateful that she’s already on her knees because the realisation is creeping up her spine and she’s not sure she could stand under the weight of it. 

Fear had motivated Melanie nearly eighty years ago, and when she passed through that fear the Halo had channelled her anger and righteous justice into a weapon to decimate her tormentors. 

Ava felt that fear, knew intimately and personally how deep it ran, had felt it etched into bones she had no control over for most of her life. The difference though is this: when Ava passed through her own fear the Halo had channelled something else. Her power had banished the demons, protected the innocent, and saved the woman she-

Oh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So eh, I wrote a thing. And might write more of the thing? I dunno, every decade or so a show grabs my attention long enough, hard enough, and gay enough to make me come out of fic-writing retirement for a spell. Congrats Warrior Nun, you're 2020's winner.


	2. John 4:18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wonderful fledgling fandom. It was such a joy seeing your kind comments on the first chapter, and the energy and vibrancy in all the great fics being posted has me truly inspired. So yeah, here we go, it's a multichapter train ride now on an express track to "I have absolutely no idea". Deus adiuva nos omnes.

> There is no fear in love,  
>  But perfect love casts out fear.  
>  For fear has to do with punishment,  
>  And whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
> 
> John 4:18

* * *

She’s glorious, Beatrice thinks.

She’s also irreverent, and self-centred, flighty and impulsive, careless, entirely too overconfident, maddening and just utterly, _utterly_ glorious. In the colloquial sense – beautiful and impressive - yes, but also in Beatrice’s very literal, very Catholic understanding of the word - resplendent in the cloth of Heaven, beatific, exalted. It is entirely unfair.

It is also impossible to ignore. _She_ is impossible to ignore, and God knows Beatrice has tried.

God also knows she has failed. 

She has confessed this failing to Him, directly and desperately and far too often in this last month for her liking. She should be better at this by now after all, she has had years of practice, years of restraint and repression and resolve. She has learned how to school her expression, to hide the affection in her gaze. She knows how to withhold herself appropriately, to look covertly and never touch. And yet, and yet and yet and yet… _Ava._

She can recall exactly the moment she made her first and fatal mistake, the error from which she can now never recover. She saw this aching mess of a girl standing in front of Mother Superion, crumbling in the face of her keen-edged probing, buckling under the weight of a destiny unasked for and unearned, and Beatrice had against all her learned defences reached out to place her hand on Ava’s shoulder.

Such a simple thing to prove her undoing.

Ava had pivoted into her touch, simply and easily accepting that which so many girls before her had treated with suspicion or contempt. Her spine shot hot and cold with guilt and fear, guilt for how affected she was by the other woman’s arms wrapping soft around her waist and fear that it showed on her face, in the hammer of her pulse, in the stiff line of her arm as she placed her hand gingerly just over the arc of the Halo in Ava’s neck. She knew, and reminded herself sternly, that this meant nothing more to Ava than a simple seeking of comfort, but oh how her treacherous heart swelled to be the one to give it.

_“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honour.”_

It has always been her mother’s voice, that internal chide that cows her in the face of what she knows she wants, what she can feel in her bones is meant for her, what she trusts in her soul she is. 

_“What you are is beautiful.”_

But maybe it will not always be her mother’s voice.

Beatrice is jolted from her thoughts by Lilith’s scuffed combat boot knocking against her own. Off her raised eyebrow and unasked question Beatrice nods that she’s okay and tries to drag her attention back to the minibus they are currently stealing in an attempt to put miles between themselves and the administrative centre of the world’s largest religion to whom she has committed her life and, also, which she has just partly blown up.

She shakes her head at that and decides that later will be a good enough time to try and make sense of what her life has become, then turns to survey her comrades. Camila is driving the appropriated bus, her eyes steady and focused on the road ahead but grip tell-tale white on the steering wheel. A couple of rows behind her Mary is sprawled across a pair of seats, grimacing each time the road shifts under them, jarring the busted ribs she earned getting buried under a heaving pile of the possessed. 

Lilith sits opposite her, her haunted, too-insightful gaze dulled to something further away than Beatrice cares to imagine. She takes in the grey-streaked hair and waxy skin, the blood-stained claws that haven’t quite retreated, and prays that there is enough of her old friend left in this Lilith who has been returned to them that she will not come to regret the fact that she cannot think of her as anything other than _Sister_.

She cranes her head to the right, searching the half dozen rows back to where the current source of her confusion and reason for introspection sits, legs folded under her and eyes on the floor in front. Ava hasn’t so much as looked at her since what the group are now terming “The Incident” in the Vatican square, and Beatrice feels her gut tying itself in knots at the thought that, despite how well she seemed to take it at the time, their conversation over Sister Melanie’s journal has changed things between them now, irrevocably, and for the worse.

She clenches her jaw, steels herself and stands, bracing herself on the headrest as she picks her way back towards the empty seat beside the Halo-bearer. Her injured arm hangs stiffly by her side and Beatrice clenches her fist, tensing the aching muscles there to feel the quick sting of pain and take strength from it. She prepares herself for the worst and tells herself that outright rejection is something better than this limbo she feels herself drifting in, unsure and unsound.

Ava startles as Beatrice’s shadow suddenly falls over her, drawing her out from her own deep thoughts. Beatrice hates the fake smile that Ava plasters on for her benefit and the cheery “hey” that invites her to sit. She hates that after just this short time together she knows Ava well enough to tell that the smile is fake, but not well enough to discern the reason why. She hates that as fearless as she knows herself to be in the heat of battle, she is not brave enough to ask.

“Are you okay?” Ava sobers as Beatrice settles beside her, wincing as her arm jostles the seat. Her voice is pitched low, quiet enough not to disturb the heavy silence that has fallen as an unvoiced consensus among them. 

Beatrice has been lying about more important things for her whole life, a simple “I’m fine” shouldn’t cause her any trouble in this moment, but Ava’s eyes are on hers, warm and sincere and so instead she leans her head back, closes her eyes and exhales a quiet “I’m exhausted”.

There is a soft huff of agreement beside her and then a hesitant pause. Beatrice waits, bracing herself for the inevitable rejection – kind brush off seems more Ava’s style rather than outright disdain, but Beatrice has been wrong in the past and so she keeps her eyes shut tight, screws her courage to the sticking place and physically steels herself for whatever the other woman will say next.

It is this preparedness that saves her, because without it the sudden shock of touch and heat in her palm would have overcome her entirely. As it is, she cannot breathe as Ava slides her fingers between Beatrice’s own, entwining so much more than their hands with that simple gesture. Ava has held her breath too, Beatrice realises suddenly, as she hears the other girl exhale softly once their hands are clasped and resting on the seat between them. 

This feels anything but simple. 

As the night draws closer around their odd pilgrimage Beatrice tries to quiet both her breathing and her thoughts. The exhaustion is overwhelming and as her body winds down, her mind slowly follows suit. In the end, she thinks, it boils down to four simple things:

She is a consecrated member of the Order of the Cruciform Sword. 

She has taken Holy Orders and vowed her life and eternal soul to poverty, chastity, and obedience.

She is entirely and hopelessly in love with the woman whose hand is strong yet shaking in her grasp, whose heart is beating steadily and patiently beside her in counterpoint to her own tremulous too-quick pulse.

And there isn’t a damn thing she can do about it.


	3. Philippians 2:2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really can't thank you guys enough for all of the great feedback and encouragement so far. Here - have a chapter in which this previously glacially-paced slow burn creeps in this petty pace.

> Complete my joy by being of the same mind,  
>  having the same love,  
>  being in full accord and of one mind.
> 
> Philippians 2:2

* * *

They don’t talk about it. Not in the silence of that night that surrounds them, not in the nearly full day it takes them to make it back to ARQ-Tech. Ava wakes at an ungodly hour of the morning (even considering the company she’s keeping), her head resting on Beatrice’s shoulder, her hand numb and twisted under them still clutched tight in her grasp. With a gentle squeeze that flares pins and needles up Ava’s arm Beatrice extricates herself and whispers that she’s going to relieve Camila at the wheel. Ava can only nod, not trusting herself yet with words, not knowing yet what shape they might take.

Instead she flexes her fingers and wonders at the sensation that lingers after the heat of Beatrice’s hand has left her own, the phantom stroke of soft skin on the back of her hand. As they hit the outskirts of Andalusia she clenches her fist and marvels at the fact that six weeks ago even that simple movement would have been beyond her; four weeks ago her entire body was lighting up under JC’s touch; and now she’s sitting in a bus repurposed from a touring Christian youth group feeling more awake and alive and attuned to her own body that she has ever been before, simply from the touch of Beatrice’s hand.

* * *

The security guard at the reception desk has apparently now become accustomed to the sight of battle-weary nuns traipsing into her building unannounced. She simply waves them through and informs them that Mr. Schaefer is expecting them on the fourth floor.

ARQ-Tech is in a state of carefully controlled chaos – Dr. Salvius is teetering on the edge of unhinged, while Schaefer has rediscovered his inner fundamentalist zealot and both are planning the multitude of ways in which they will repurpose the Arc to kick down the gates of Heaven.

It does absolutely nothing to help Ava’s now entirely out of control crush that Beatrice is the one to bring some semblance of rationale to the proceedings. She takes control of the bewildered team of scientists who aren’t really sure how to process their team lead muttering about Heaven and Hell and following her son to whichever one has claimed him, and Ava thinks that watching a nun impose order on a group of labcoats may be the most incongruous thing she has seen this week, until the following day when Mother Superion arrives.

The woman clears a path before her with nothing more than a slightly raised eyebrow and the intimation that her cane could be used precisely and violently if required. Having been on the receiving end of her lessons in mental fortitude, Ava gives her a wide berth as she drags Jillian Salvius into a locked room and what she can only imagine passes for the Mother’s approach to spiritual guidance.

From what the Sisters glean in the aftermath, former-Cardinal-now-somehow-Pope Duretti is willing to turn a blind eye to the more excommunicable parts of their activities in the Vatican if the OCS can clean up their own mess and neutralise the threat of an escaped Adriel. A Vatican-approved scrier arrives (and who knew that was a thing?) and tells them that the maybe Angel/maybe Demon/definitely Ava’s problem is no longer on this spiritual plane. This revelation leads to a spirited and highly technical discussion between Dr. Salvius, Mother Superion, and the team of now only marginally bewildered scientists, of which Ava follows about a third, before someone finally utters a sentence that she can follow.

“Wait, hold on” she interjects. “Adriel is on the other side of... whatever’s on the other side of that gate. And you can open it?”

“Briefly,” Salvius confirms. “With enough energy to send one person through.”

It’s clear from the set of her jaw, the determined steel in her gaze that Jillian Salvius is firmly under the impression that she will be the one to follow Michael through the Arc, but Ava has had a supernatural chakram embedded in her spine, an unbeatable healing factor granted to her, and frankly just about enough of this shit.

“I’ll go.” Her tone is firm, resolved, and brooks absolutely no argument.

Of course, everyone argues with her immediately.

“My son-“ “-won’t let you-“ “-not ready for-“ “-chance in literal Hell-“

She wants to run. Turn tail and flee the building, go until she hits the edge of what she knows and falls into something altogether new. She used to dream of it, in the orphanage – used to dream of waking one day with a body she could control, a life she had agency in. She used to dream of flying – of soaring through the window of her too-small room and simply floating away, casting her body upon the winds and letting them carry her to somewhere better. Anywhere was better.

Fight, she thinks, not flight.

And Beatrice is right here.

And nothing is better than that.

“I’ll go.”

* * *

The team make preparations for her departure and Ava tries very hard not to panic and take it all back. 

“Twenty minutes,” Salvius warns her, and turns back to doing something complicated with her tablet. 

Ava nods, bouncing on the balls of her feet and resisting the urge to phase through the wall into open air and sweet, sweet freedom. “Sure, cool, I’ll just be-“ she gestures vaguely to the door, then exits into the corridor, pacing steadily away from the room and the imposing bulk of an interdimensional gateway to who-knows-what.

She exhales sharply as the door opens again behind her, knowing without turning exactly who has followed her. It should be no surprise that Beatrice would be the one to come after her and offer words of encouragement, the reassurance that Ava needs to believe in herself and her ability to complete the mission. When she turns to face the taller girl though it is not reassurance she sees in her eyes at all.

Beatrice flicks a worried glance over her shoulder, then seizes Ava’s arm and drags her into the nearest unoccupied room. 

“I hate this plan.”

Off-balance, the Halo-bearer nods and offers a half-hearted shrug. “I don’t love it either, but we’ve worked with less.”

“I should be with you,” Beatrice is vehement in her conviction, “I should be watching your back.” She paces back and forth in front of Ava as though the very thought of inaction goads her to it.

Ava thinks about how it felt to be suspended in the heart of a stone wall, her only connection to light and air and life coming through Beatrice’s voice in her ear. She remembers the panic of near-paralysis after she over-exerted herself stopping Sister Crimson, how the frantic beating of her heart changed pace when she realised she could feel Beatrice’s hand pressed tight in her own. She considers every moment when they’ve been close enough to kiss, where Ava has wanted nothing more than to close the gap between them, to close every gap between them and fall into this brave, incredible, glorious woman entirely and completely and forever. She inhales slowly as in spite of herself her eyes are drawn to the other woman’s habit, her wimple and scapular, her crucifix, all the outward trappings that exist to remind her that Beatrice is promised to God and not hers to want at all.

Fuck it. Fight, not flight.

“Listen,” she raises an awkward hand to scratch at the back of her neck and Beatrice stops pacing to regard her fully. “If things go sideways-“

“They won’t,” Beatrice takes a half step towards her as though to reassure one or both of them that failure in this mission is not an option.

“If,” Ava insists, holding her gaze steady while her heart beats anything but “then I just want you to know…” She hesitates.

It would be so easy to come out with a simpler sentiment, to back away and go jump in an interdimensional portal to parts unknown without having to say the thing that’s true, the thing that scares her even more than the thought of an interdimensional portal to parts unknown.

“Thank you,” she finally forces past the increasingly large lump in her throat. 

Beatrice’s brow furrows and Ava thinks that maybe the Halo was on to something – maybe she really should be the Chosen One because somehow, somewhere, she finds the strength not to reach out and smooth that furrow away with her thumbs, her lips. Instead she clasps her hands together and offers an awkward one-shouldered shrug.

“You were…” their eyes lock and Ava’s heart is hammering and her stomach is churning and it isn’t fair that this feels like goodbye. “You were the best part, of all of this.” She swallows. “Of everything.”

Beatrice stills entirely, then in one fluid, graceless movement Ava is wrapped up in her arms. They cling to each other, desperate and reckless as Beatrice presses her face to the space behind Ava’s ear, her lips too close as she whispers ”God, forgive me.”

Ava leans back, her arms tightening around Beatrice’s waist as she scans the other woman’s face. “You haven’t done anything that needs God’s forgiveness.” 

Beatrice just shakes her head, her eyes brimming as she drops her gaze entirely unhelpfully down to Ava’s mouth. “Not what I’ve done,” her voice is barely more than a whisper, “what I feel.” Their foreheads come to rest gently against each other, sharing the same air as her confession falls gently into the ever-decreasing space between them. “What I want, when I’m with you.”

Ava slides her hand up to cup Beatrice’s jaw, her fingers trailing lightly down her neck. Beatrice leans lightly into that touch before shaking her head.

“But I can’t…”

“I know,” Ava murmurs gently.

“I’m not supposed to feel this way.”

“But you do?” Her touch is soft, her question even softer, and the last of Beatrice’s resistance melts away.

“Yes.”

Ava pulls back, only a matter of inches, and Beatrice can feel the heat that radiates from her warm her own already-flushed skin. 

“I love you,” Ava offers up with a half-smile, the almost-embarrassed quirk of her lips overridden by the sincerity with which she holds Beatrice’s gaze. “I respect you, and your vows, and I don’t want to ask for anything more than you’re willing to give.” Here her fingers curl a little against the curve of Beatrice’s jaw, “But I love you, and I will love you in every way that you let me.”

There is no choice, no resistance, no option to turn away. It happens as naturally as drawing her next breath when Beatrice leans in to slide her lips over Ava’s. Fingers tighten on the back of her neck and a breathless sigh escapes her, melting into the kiss as Ava hums against her. 

For long moments there is nothing but this, nothing but the soft glide of lips and tongues and hands and Beatrice has never felt closer to God than she does right now, even as she breaks every vow she ever made to Him.

They break for air, and a suspiciously precise couple of moments later Mary hammers on the door of the heavily windowed room they are leaning against each other in. She gives them another suspiciously adequate couple of moments to compose themselves before she cracks the door open and nods to Ava. “You’re up.” She won’t look directly at either of them.

Ava breathes out and reaches for Beatrice’s hand, “Okay. Let’s do this.”

She turns to go but is stopped by a forceful tug that pulls her back to earnest eyes and a fierce determination. Beatrice’s hand tightens in hers. 

“I love you too.” It’s soft enough to be meant for Ava, loud enough for Mary to hear, and sure enough that Beatrice doesn’t care.

Mary scowls and clears her throat because really, there’s only so much she can pretend not to be seeing here. “Portal opening, Halo-bearer needed, any time you’re ready.”

“Yeah,” Ava’s grin is wide and reckless and focused entirely on Beatrice. “Yeah okay, let’s do this.”

They follow Mary out of the door and back down the corridor, into the room with the Arc humming gently in its centre and an unknown realm waiting for her on the other side. 

Beatrice doesn’t let go of her hand the whole way there.


	4. John 8:32

> And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
> 
> John 8:32

* * *

She sends Ava through the portal with one last too-tight squeeze of her hand and a choked “Be careful”.

The happy grin hasn’t left Ava’s face, and even as she unsheathes the sword and squares her shoulders there’s a small smile playing across those lips that have so recently been pressed to Beatrice’s own.

“Be back before you know it,” she promises, and Beatrice sends up a fervent silent prayer as she watches her step through the swirling cloud of energy that she’s right, and that very soon she will have Ava home and safe by her side again. 

She waits by the machine for hours, into the early part of the next morning. The next day she resumes her vigil, and the day after that.

Six days after Ava steps through the portal, with still no word from her, Beatrice wonders if it was that - a fearful prayer from a fallen nun petitioning for the woman she had broken her vows over, that had so affronted God he has seen fit to punish her like this.

* * *

Dr. Salvius is incandescent.

“I told you it should have been me!” she rounds on Schaefer, eyes wild as he tries to placate her. Her breath is coming rapidly, breaking around her quick rush of words. “But you trusted this mission to a- a _child!_ And now she’s dead and I’ll never see my son again-“

The loud snap of breaking plastic echoes through the room causing Jillian to break off and turn to the source of the noise. Beatrice looks down and is surprised to find that it’s her – the remnants of the chair she had been holding are shards in her hands and it isn’t until she sees the blood that the pain registers somewhere in her mind deep under the deafening reverberations of _“she’s dead”_. 

It’s the first time anyone’s voiced that possibility out loud. It’s not the first time Beatrice’s worried heart has thought it.

“No.” It’s Mary’s insistent voice that springs to her defence. “She isn’t.” Her eyes are locked on the blonde doctor, but her words are for Beatrice alone. “Ava’s tough, she’s got this. I mean it’s not like she can call us up on the interdimensional telephone to give us a sit rep. I’m sure everything’s okay.”

“Something is wrong.”

Mary rolls her eyes and rounds on Lilith. “See now that’s really not helping…” 

She trails off as she takes in the way Lilith is standing, head bowed, eyes staring much further ahead than the horizon her gaze is trained on. Lilith’s eyes are spreading pools of black ink, and Beatrice thinks she can see the dance and lick of flames reflected in them just before her head snaps up and the temperature in the room climbs a dozen degrees or so.

“Something is terribly wrong.”

And then there is a swirl of red and orange light and Lilith is simply gone. 

Mother Superion and Mary exchange a worried look while Camila crosses herself, lips moving in silent prayer. Beatrice breaks.

* * *

She hits the pavement outside ARQ-Tech, her breath already short from the sprint down the emergency stairs, picks a direction and starts to run. Every step pounds a fresh wave of guilt through her, the rhythm of boots on concrete setting the tempo of her internal monologue: _your fault, your fault, your fault_.

She did this. She knew what she felt for Ava, knew that she should have shut it down before it ever had a chance to start. But she had indulged, in conversations that said too much and touches that should never have happened, and then she had to go and kiss her and now that action has literally sent Ava to Hell.

She should have been stronger, better. If she was half the Sister Warrior she thought herself to be she should have been able to resist these earthly temptations, or like Sister Shannon sublimate that romantic love into a chaste and holy devotion. But she couldn’t. She was too weak. Weak and stupid and selfish and-

_“Beautiful.”_

She pulls up short abruptly, ragged gasps for air tearing through her as she bends at the waist and wipes furiously at the tears that won’t stop falling.

 _“Would you change it?”_ this new inner voice is defiant and sure, interrupting the cycle of shame that she’s caught in, and sounding exactly like Ava. Beatrice sobs harder because she knows that the answer is no. 

Given the chance to do it all over again Beatrice knows that from the first time Ava smiles at her she would readily give the other woman her heart and soul and body still and gladly damn them both.

She realises she can’t cry and get her breath back at the same time, so slowly her tears subside as she stands with her hands behind her head, trying to take in steady streams of air. Mary finds her like this ten minutes later, rolling to a stop alongside her on a sleek grey motorcycle and glaring daggers at any passers-by who stop to stare a little too long at the strange tableau they make. 

“Got that out of your system?” the soldier asks as she tosses Beatrice a spare helmet.

Beatrice is grateful for the gruff approach, she doesn’t think she could handle overt kindness right now. She nods briskly. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Good,” Mary kicks the stand out from under her and gestures for Beatrice to climb on. “Then let’s get you back to the lab – you’re gonna want to be there when your girl gets back.”

‘ _My girl_ ,’ Beatrice thinks, with the same reverence previously reserved only for ‘ _My God_ ’ and tries not to notice how easily that sits with her. She tries not to think about when, exactly, Ava became the most important thing in her life, when the most sanctified evangelical counsels took a back seat to warm brown eyes and a quick grin. She tries and fails miserably, and realises that she doesn’t much mind failing in this at all.

As Mary guns the engine, Beatrice closes her eyes briefly and forms a prayer in that part of her soul that she has struggled to keep hidden for years. She prays not as a holy Sister, a bride and soldier both of Christ, but simply as a woman in supplication to her God.

The answering peace is brief, but she feels it, and just for that moment that peace is stronger than the fear.

* * *

Mother Superion has always had far too insightful a mind for Beatrice’s liking. Her very first day in the Cat’s Cradle as a novitiate she had stood before the Mother in a line of other young women and trembled when she stopped in front of her, pinning her to the spot with the steel in her gaze. Beatrice was certain that every one of her secrets, every hidden thought was writ large on her face, her soul laid bare as the older woman remained expressionless and unblinking for what felt like eternity, before she nodded once, briefly, and moved on to the next in line. 

She feels something similar now, standing in the middle of the office Mother Superion has arranged to use off one of Salvius’ labs. She has come to petition for intercession with the Vatican. Duretti is no friend of theirs, certainly, but Beatrice pleads with Mother Superion to use whatever influence she may yet have to help find a way to open the portal, to bring Ava back or to send her through to find her. 

“As I have told you, all avenues both official and unofficial have been exhausted.” She raises a hand to forestall Beatrice’s next argument, “I have done all I possibly can do.” 

“Well it’s not enough!” the Sister Warrior’s voice rings too loudly off the clean surfaces of the frugally designed office as she paces jerkily back and forth, too agitated to stand still. “Ava is out there somewhere, she is the Warrior Nun and we are her team and we have to fucking **DO** something!” 

“Sister Beatrice!” Mother Superion brings a hand down hard on the desk in front of her, eyes narrowing as she regards the young woman from where she sits. “Remember yourself. You are a professed Sister of the Order of the Cruciform Sword-“ 

“Well maybe I shouldn’t be!” 

Beatrice rounds on her heel to face the other woman as she says it and then freezes in shock, one hand flying to cover her mouth as if she can physically stop the blasphemy from travelling any further. Her knees are suddenly weak and she drops into the chair beside her. 

“I- I didn’t mean…” 

Mother Superion on the other hand sits back in her chair, her expression easing as though this was what she was expecting all along. Beatrice suspects it might have been. 

“You did.” Her tone has lost some of its edge. “Why?” 

Beatrice scrabbles for purchase, feels as though her whole world is tilting somewhere beyond her control. How can she possibly put words to this? 

“I broke my vows… Ava-“ 

“This is not about Ava,” Mother Superion is firm but not unkind, but Beatrice feels a flare of resentment nonetheless. 

“I love her,” she bridles, because how could this not be about Ava? Ever since the Halo chose her and threw an unprepared young woman into the heart of Beatrice’s life it feels as though _everything_ has been about Ava, whether she was ready to admit it or not. 

“You do.” Mother Superion nods. “And I suspect she loves you also.” Beatrice feels her heart ease a little at those words, even as heat creeps up her neck. “But that is not what this is about, is it?” 

And Beatrice feels that familiar shameful clench of fear blossom in her gut, but now instead of clamping it down for fear of being seen she lets it grow, lets it spread upwards and outwards of her until it dissipates in the light of her own resolve and Mother Superion’s knowing look. Because she’s right, it’s not about Ava. 

Ava was the one who threw herself into Beatrice’s life like a shock of cold water to her system, who took her hand and showed her a path towards a future she had long ago resigned herself to never having. But Beatrice was the one who walked that path, Beatrice was the one who made that choice, and now in the artificial light of a laboratory office, Beatrice is the one whose soul breaks open, whose secrets and doubts spill forth in confession and catharsis alike. 

She tells Mother Superion of how she has struggled, always, to consider her choice of religious life as vocation instead of escape. How she has tried and failed to reconcile her genuine love for God with her own self-loathing, and learned shame, and constant fear that who she is condemns her in the eyes of a God she serves to find redemption. 

When finally she is emptied of words Mother Superion rises from her seat, rounds the desk and stands by Beatrice’s side. 

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” She intones the scripture with a hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. “God made you and he does not make mistakes; you are exactly and perfectly who you should be.” 

Beatrice laughs and sobs together at that, wiping at the tears that seem to be her constant companions these days. Mother Superion’s hand squeezes lightly in reassurance and Beatrice can feel the strength that flows from her, the conviction that radiates. She closes her eyes and prays for some of that same strength, for herself, for Lilith, most of all for Ava. 

Two hours later when the portal opens, Beatrice wonders if it was that - a loving prayer from a fallen nun petitioning for the woman she had broken her vows over, that had so moved God he has seen fit to reward her like this.


	5. Romans 12:2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are folks- this is the last chapter in what started as an "Ava catches feelings" caterpillar oneshot that, it turns out, really wanted to be a "9,000 word existential crisis character study for Beatrice grappling with the nature of her religious vows and internalised homophobia" butterfly. Who knew! (Not me, certainly. I've just been along for the ride. These two have been calling audibles from the start)
> 
> This was an insane amount of fun to write and that is all down to this wonderful baby fandom - just newly-hatched and already one of the nicest places my eclectic tastes have led me. Thank you to everyone who left kudos or a comment, and for those of you who've followed along and commented on every chapter, you are the most glorious and beautiful of people, the absolute beating heart of what it is that makes fic possible and good, and I deeply appreciate every one of you from the very bottom of my grouchy old heart.

> Do not be conformed to this world,  
>  but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,  
>  that by testing you may discern what is the will of God,  
>  what is good and acceptable and perfect.
> 
> Romans 12:2

* * *

They tumble back into the ARQ-Tech offices in a blur of orange Hellfire and the Halo’s light, Ava wielding the sword from within the protection of Lilith’s impressively large, black, taloned wings. Which is… new.

The Sisters roll into action. Mother Superion ushers the civilians to safety, while Camila and Mary train their weapons on the glowing portal and Beatrice moves to place herself bodily between their comrades and whatever is following them through.

There is a deafening roar, the primal sound of a beast at hunt, the answering echo of a dozen voices, then a hundred more howling in response. The ethereal flame that billows from the gateway shimmers from orange to blue and sweat beads on Beatrice’s skin. 

“For the love of-“ Salvius rolls her eyes at Mary’s attempts to keep her to the edges of the room, taking advantage of her focus on the portal to slip around the other woman’s outstretched arm. “It’s a machine,” exasperation rings in her tone as she strides across the room to the Arc’s access panel, unclipping the coupler and pulling the power source loose.

Immediately the flames die. A swirling grey cloud surges across the face of the portal and then disappears. All is silent again.

“Ha!” Ava exclaims, still facing the portal, sword raised high and defiant in victory. “Kicked their ass,” she smirks, and promptly crumples to the floor as she passes out.

* * *

When Beatrice was twelve years old she started a new school and made a new friend. School was something she had always excelled at but friends were not, and so she treasured every minute spent in Suzanne’s company.

By Third Year their circle of two had expanded. Beatrice excelled academically, and was a key member of more than one sports team; Suzanne who was more shy and less athletically inclined was funny and kind, and they and their friends shared everything together, from classes to hockey finals, birthday parties and lunchtimes laughing behind teachers backs in the lunchroom. Always at the heart of it though, the two of them, the nucleus around which Beatrice built her days.

Then Angela Blake kissed a boy, and suddenly everything changed. It spread like wildfire through their year (though privately Beatrice thought of it in terms of a less charitable metaphor), and now weekends that had previously been spent carefree in the local shopping centre became tense trips to the cinema where nervous-palmed boys paired off with the girls who suddenly seemed to be on the other side of an ever-widening gulf from Beatrice.

Not Suzanne though. She was, as ever, at Beatrice’s side, rolling their eyes in unison at the peacocking antics of adolescent lust. When Beatrice tired of dodging well-intentioned second-hand propositions at teenage discos, running out of variations on “he’s not my type”, Suzanne was the one who suggested they just stop going. So instead of trying to keep up with the headlong race towards adulthood their friends had thrown themselves into, she and Beatrice began to spend more time alone together, in the library, walking home, evenings spent on homework in each other’s houses and weekends watching movies and clinging to the heart of what they knew.

Beatrice’s parents were delighted – their only daughter’s grades were consistently brilliant, her walls adorned with medals and trophies, and she was eschewing the hormonal teenage nonsense with boys that they had consistently warned her against.

In truth, Beatrice had never really understood the impulse that drove Angela Blake and the rest to act like less than they were when in the presence of the opposite sex. She knew these girls, knew them to be capable, intelligent, self-possessed creatures. She wondered what it was about desire that could so fundamentally change a person beyond recognition.

She wondered this right up until the day she looked in the mirror an hour after Suzanne had kissed her for the first time, shaking and breathless, and saw an entirely new person staring back at her.

* * *

Ava cracks an eye open to a relieved sigh from Beatrice who presses a soft kiss to the knuckles cradled in both her hands. “Hi there.”

Ava grins at her with far more humour and heat than Beatrice reckons is really called for and squeezes her hand weakly as she feels strength beginning to return to her body.

“D’you miss me?”

Beatrice snorts a little ungainly at that, ‘miss’ not quite covering the vast array of emotions that she has been battling while Ava’s been gone. She thinks of saying “a little”, teasing humour an easy fallback between the two of them, but then she remembers the despair that coursed through her at the idea she might never be coming back at all.

“Desperately.”

Ava’s flesh is warm and solid under her own and she watches as the other woman puts down the armour of humour and deflection that is her constant defence. Ava’s expression sobers, morphs into something more tender and yet infinitely more strong. Her other hand rises to cup Beatrice’s cheek, thumb running over the ghosts of tears that she has shed this past week.

“Me too.”

Beatrice turns her head to place a gentle kiss against Ava’s palm and marvels at the thought that she is _allowed_ this, that Ava knows her and wants her. 

_’My girl.’_

Ava opens her mouth to say something but suddenly her face contorts as though she’s been struck. “Oh shit! Lilith-“ She’s halfway to sitting up in the bed when Beatrice places a hand on her shoulder keeping her still. “Is she okay? I’ve got to see her.”

“Lilith’s okay,” she reassures her. “She’s with Mother Superion.”

“She saved my ass.” Ava still holds tension in every line of her frame but she lies back in the bed at least.

“She told us,” Beatrice’s mouth ticks upwards – Lilith had not been modest in relating the story: arriving in the pits of a dimension ravaged by fire and smoke, pulling Ava from the midst of a horde of Tarasks intent on reclaiming the halo, holding off the denizens of that hellworld long enough for Ava to corner Adriel; the duel, the victory, the hasty fleeing for their lives.

“Did she make it sound super dramatic though?” Ava is pouting a little. “Because I was like, crazy heroic in there.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it.” Beatrice allows Ava to bask in the praise for just a moment. “After all you had a very good teacher.”

“I did.” Ava grins back at her before her eyes fall from Beatrice’s face to take in the rest of her. “Hey,” her brow furrows a little, “why aren’t you wearing your habit?”

* * *

They spent every moment they could together, stolen kisses and furtive notes, discovering and learning each other and falling in love.

One evening in the half-light of Suzanne’s basement Beatrice lay undone beside her on the couch as they whispered their first “I love you”s. Later, with kiss-stung lips Suzanne told her “Bea, I think you’re perfect.” And Beatrice could only kiss her again and wonder why that felt like exactly the wrong thing to say. 

Later still a letter, Suzanne’s careful penmanship and not-careful-enough delivery and their secret was not a secret any more, and all of the girls who were normal and acceptable knew then that she wasn’t.

Her parents were furious – the grades and walls full of honours paling to insignificance in the face of such a transgression. Their words of admonishment rang in her ears for days _(and weeks, and years)_ and the weight of those words piled on top of each other was enough to crush her, eventually.

She begged for their forgiveness, while in the deepest corner of her heart she knew with certainty that love was not something that needed to be forgiven. She begged for their understanding, but learned instead that her grades, her brilliance, her _self_ meant nothing as long as she was broken. She begged for their love, and found she could have it, with conditions.

And she was fifteen and wanted her parents to love her more than anything she could yet imagine, so when they sent her to Switzerland and the nuns who said they would save her soul, she went willingly.

When they brought her to her old school to pack up her things, her face burned at the whispers that flowed behind her back and she felt the shame of that judgement from within and without. When Suzanne ran to her in the middle of the front lawn, face tear-streaked and clinging desperately to her arm it was under her mother’s watchful gaze that she shook herself free, it was for the benefit of those too-observant whispering girls that she rounded on her hissing “stay away from me, you freak” and broke two hearts in one instant.

* * *

The words “I’m renouncing my vows” fill Ava with twin spikes of sheer joy and absolute panic. “Oh. Wow, that’s… oh.” Beatrice just watches with a small amused smile as Ava’s demeanour grows more frantic.

“I mean, you know, great I’m not risking Hell every time I kiss you but that’s… that’s…” the panic seems to die a little as Ava really takes stock of the situation. “Bea, that’s huge. Your faith is such a big part of you. Are you sure about this?”

She tries to be stern but Ava’s genuine concern for her softens Beatrice’s response. “And here I thought I’d already taught you that not everything is about you.”

Ava splutters. “Okay, but-“

“Seriously, Ava. I’m doing this for myself.” She holds that clear brown gaze with her own, trying to convey as much of what she’s feeling as she can. After years of teaching herself to hide it, this act alone feels impulsively liberating. “My faith is my own, and unaffected. I will still serve God, still fight with the OCS, but I took my vows for all the wrong reasons. Mother Superion helped me to see that, and so did you.”

Ava looks away and considers this for a long, quiet moment before meeting Beatrice’s eyes again.

“So, a little bit for me, right?” and her face breaks into a wide smirk that Beatrice is growing to love.

“Oh do shut up.” She rolls her eyes and leans in to kiss the smugness from her lips, laughingly admitting as she does, “a little.”

* * *

When Beatrice was fifteen years old she started a new school and made no friends. She applied herself more studiously, more diligently than ever before. She finished first in her class, added yet more medals to the walls of a house in London that she never visited any more, and held herself apart from everyone in what she told herself was scholarly rigour but what felt a lot like fear.

When she was sixteen years old she started a new life and made the first of her temporary vows. These women she could find purpose in, she thought. None of them would expect her to be fawning over boys and this militant Order she had been recommended for offered a way to channel her skills and an avenue with which to prove her worth. 

For the first time since her first kiss she thought that maybe she could be safe somewhere. That maybe she could belong.

So in her third month in the OCS when Sister Alice, a new recruit from Belgium, sat just a little too close at dinner, and held her eye just a little too long when she smiled, Beatrice shuttered her gaze and turned away, her heart pounding loudly enough that she was sure the whole table could hear it.

That night she added another vow to the end of those she recited daily: that she would find the strength to resist earthly temptations in the surety of heavenly glory.

Just because she was broken did not mean she was weak.

* * *

Three days later they are en route from Rome to reclaim the Cat’s Cradle.

Their welcome at ARQ-Tech was short-lived once Dr. Salvius accepted that Michael had chosen to stay among what Ava told her he was now calling “his people”, and so they had shipped out to the Vatican to report to the newly-elected Pope.

Duretti had given them free reign to reform the OCS under the leadership of Mother Superion, a special dispensation for the former-Sister Beatrice, and a strongly worded warning that if they brought trouble like this down upon the Church again he would personally excommunicate every single one of them.

Their fight is far from over – Father Vincent is still somewhere out there, and Mary will not rest until Shannon’s murderer faces justice. There are surely others within the Order, those like Sister Crimson who yet serve an agenda of their own making and must be rooted out. The Tarasks, Lilith is certain, will pursue Ava as long as she bears the Halo, and Ava is no less determined now than before she battled an arch-demon that she will be the last Warrior Nun of the line.

And demons, Camila reminds them. There are always more demons.

Beatrice should feel overwhelmed at the thought of it, at the scale of the task ahead of them – so much planning and preparation to get it right, to make sure that she is ready, that she is perfect. Instead all she feels is a renewed sense of vigour for the battle ahead, a joy singing through her blood at the thought of going into battle with these incredible, brave women at her back.

She looks around the rented bus at her team – Camila is driving them home, singing quietly and tunefully to the song that’s playing low on the radio. Behind her, Mary is leafing through the Warrior Nuns’ diary, her fingers gently tracing the outline of the last words Shannon left and a look equal parts grief and determination in her eyes. Lilith is sitting cross-legged, eyes closed and breathing deeply and evenly as she tries to master herself, to master this new body and all its changes, while Mother Superion watches her with a deeply-earned understanding and murmured words of encouragement.

And Ava… Ava is beside her, arms linked, left hand clasped in hers while her right taps out a rhythm on her thigh. 

She looks over and catches Beatrice mid-contemplation, a matching smile rising to her face as she nudges her shoulder gently. “What are you smiling at?”

Beatrice shrugs and answers lightly, easily, “You.”

Ava laughs and leans up against her. “You’re such a sap,” and kisses her lightly, easily. “I love you.”

And Beatrice smiles because it’s true, and she loves her too, and the most important people in her world are here safe by her side. She smiles because they won, because whatever comes next they will face, together.

She smiles because she is not perfect.

She is loved.


End file.
